Episode 367: The Beat: Profiles of Police Nationwide: Pete Ostrovsky - US Customs (Volume 19) - Mic’d In New Haven

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Bike to Do Even podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Globe. We're not out

(00:43):
there fighting anything other than crime.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
WI see stuff that nobody should have to.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
You know, Short thirty one, he.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Wreck it out, didn't make your car.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
You're listening to the beat profiles of police nationwide. Great
to have you back for what should be another fun
episode of the Mike the New Aven Podcast, Episode three
hundred and sixty seven. I mistakenly ran that introduction, of course,
the other day for Friday's show. I'm entitled to a
gap every now and then, but that wasn't the beat.
But it was episode three hundred and sixty six of

(01:33):
the Mike the New Aven Podcast, and that featured former
NYP the Assistant Commissioner Kevin O'Connor, who was very fortunate
to have a great conversation with covering his career. That
man did thirty five years in total in the New
York City Police Department, and we were able to talk
about the many different roles that he held over those thirty
five years that culminated, of course in him retiring as
an assistant commissioner not too long ago. In twenty twenty three.

(01:55):
This is the beat, however, and it is volume nineteen
of this mini series which started on a whim a
couple of years ago, and I'd sooner be closing in
on twenty volumes again the Bob Starkman Tree Raiam Supreme
on the Mike the New Haven Podcast. He started this
a couple of years ago. That led to Alex Alonso,
that led to our dear late friend Miles Son, that
led to Toby Roach, that led to Lorenzo Toledo. Of course,

(02:18):
Joe Pistone, Ralph Friedman and tonight's guest will introduce momentarily
you know the drill. By now, if there's a question
you guys have, should you be tuning in from Twitter
or ex whatever you call it these days, YouTube LinkedIn
or Facebook fire away, and I'll be sure to highlight
it at the appropriate time. In the meantime, of course,
I do want to run an ad from my friend
who I'm sure is not resting on this day, even

(02:39):
though you should be. He's out there working knowing him.
And that is a retired NYPD detective and private investigator Jordinaire,
the one, the Only Bill Ryant, The Mike the Newhaven
Podcast is proudly sponsored and supported by the Ryan Investigative Group.
If you need an elite PI, look no further than
the elite Ryan Investigative Group, which is run by retired
NYP Detective Bill Ryant, veteran of the Department who served

(03:01):
the majority of his career in the detective Bureau, most
notably in the Arson Explosion Squad. So if you need
a PI to handle anything from fraud, legal services, and
anything else that you might require, contact Bill at three
four seven four one seven sixteen ten Again three four
seven four one seven sixteen ten reach him at his
website or the email that you see here. Again, if
you need a PI, look no further than Bill Ryan

(03:23):
and the Ryan Investigative Through a proud supporter and sponsor
of the Mike de Newhaven Podcast. Billy, of course, is
not only a good friend on the area, he's a
good friend off there, and he's really one of the
backbones of this show. As you know, tayls fro the
Boom Room or NYPD Bomb Squad miniseries got started because
of him. So always good to see Billy on this program.
He'll always be tied at the hip with me and
as this Bob Starkman, because, like I said earlier, Bob

(03:46):
Starkman is a big part of the reason why my
next guest DENI are are going to be having a
conversation tonight, and who's my next guest. Well, thirty one
year veteran, a federal law enforcement whose career has taken
him from the waters off Miami to the embassies of
Europe and everywhere in between us. Him and I were
talking about just now off the air. He's a decorated
US Customs and Homeland Security Investigation special agent. He's worked
under cover on high sea smuggling cases, tracked terrorist activity

(04:09):
in South Florida, and helped pioneer new methods of cross
border interdiction in the Pacific Northwest. He's commanded vessels, led
tactical teams, built investigated task forces from the ground up,
and even helped stand up the nation's response protocol to
bioterrorism threats, which we'll dive into as well. And after
retiring from federal service, his commitment to service continued most
personally and powerfully, of course, when he became a gold

(04:31):
Star father, unfortunately losing his son, Marine Lance Corporal Jack
Ryan Ostrowsky in a twenty twenty training accident. So through
advocacy and action, he's honored that legacy, which we'll also
talk about every day, and that for this volume nineteen
of the Beat Profiles of police nationwide. Retired US Customs
Special Agent Peterstrowsky, mister Strofsky, pleasure to have you on
the program. Welcome, How are you.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
I'm doing great, Thank you for having me on Mike.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Thank you for being here. We've been following each other
on social media for quite a bit, so it's nice
to finally link up and do this. And you were
explaining your background to me off the air, which I
was just fascinated by. So for those listening in and
tuning in, Hello to all, you once again fill the
audience in and what you were just telling me about
your background.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, so you know, obviously Ostrovsky, that's a Russian last name,
and my well, back up, I'll back way up. My grandfather,
my Russian grandfather left Siberia during the Russian Revolution and
went to China and he was living in a Russian community,

(05:37):
met my grandmother. My father was born in Shanghai and
he ended up growing up in kinsin China. In nineteen
forty eight, my father and his parents left China and
went to Havana, Cuba, and my father went to high
school in Havana, and he eventually met my mother, who

(06:01):
was a Cuban and you know, they got married. And
at the time when my grandfather and grandmother and my
father entered Cuba, they got Cuban citizenship. So when my
folks came to the United States in nineteen sixty, they
were Cuban citizens. And I'm essentially a Cuban American, believe

(06:25):
it or not.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Which that's you again, such an interesting and diverse background because,
like I told you off air, and I'll tell you
the same thing to the audience watching on the air,
never judge a book by its cover. You would think
a six three air blue Eyes that you were telling
me off the air guy with the last name of
Strowsky would never by any definition be a Cuban American.
But by definition, as he told me, you are, So,

(06:47):
you know, again, a diverse background that upon first glance
nobody would have guessed.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, And who would have thought that my first language
was Spanish in our home because my mother did not
speak English very well well, so we spoke Spanish first
and English second. So yeah, it's it's been an interesting.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Way to grow up.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
You know, I can imagine before I get into law
enforcement career. What's interesting about you, and we're talking with
retired specially Pete Strowski here on the Mike Di Dwaven
podcast of volume nineteen and the PEAT Profiles Police Nationwide,
is you were an athlete, You played soccer, you ran
cross country before law enforcement. Was there ever thought about
trying to be a pro athlete.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
No, not at all. You know, I was an age
group swimmer when I was a child, from like age
six to age fourteen. But I ended up going to
Shamanad High School in Hollywood, Florida, which is a private
Marionist high school. They did not have a swim team,
so at that point it was a matter of looking for,

(07:53):
you know, a new new physical activity, and I ran
cross country and long distance and track and ended up
playing soccer. You know, soccer in the seventies in the
United States was kind of like a new thing. I
can tell you that I wasn't very good. I definitely

(08:13):
know I wasn't very good, but you know, it's what
does when I was outside of the classroom in high school.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's a good foundation because it keeps you out of
trouble and even if you're not the star of the field,
it gives you good disciplinet obviously teaches you camaraderie, teaches
your teamwork and all the skills that you need you know,
not only be successful on the field, but obviously ultimately
in life, and that played a central role at what
would come later. So it's interesting your relationship with Florida,
particularly Miami. It stretches back a long time, but one

(08:40):
of the major steps that led you to where you
would go law enforcement wise, began originally as a student
at the U. Shout out to the Hurricanes. They just
had a big win over Notre Dame yesterday, so all
my Hurricane fans are happy about that. But originally you
went there and your major or your background that you
were looking to go into, at least study wise, was
health and fitness. So go into the U, especially during

(09:01):
that time where we're talking cocaine cowboys era in Miami,
so it's a wild time. The party scene is quite prevalent.
What was getting your education down there like and how
difficult was it to stay on the straight and narrow
considering all the madness around you.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, you know, so I was fortunate that my father,
you know, i'd call him an international businessman. He used
to sell an export radio broadcast equipment to Latin.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
America and the Caribbean.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
So he was able to afford to send my sister
and I to you know, private high schools and then
private education at the University of Miami. My sister was
three years ahead of me. I really kind of followed
in her footsteps. I don't know why. I just kind
of did.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Because it was this easy thing to do.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
But then I was at the University of Miami, you know,
pursuing my degree. My sophomore year or my sophomore summer,
I started working on the Miami b Patrol as a
lifeguard on the old South Beach before it was you know,
the Art Deco district was like revitalized, and that's where

(10:09):
I started to see marine law enforcement boats and units,
you know, whether it was the Coastguard or the Florida
Marine Patrol, which now is known as the Florida Fish
and Wildlife Commission. You know, it's different. It's got a
name change now, you know. And then i'd see, you know,

(10:30):
back then it was a Metrodaid Police their marine unit,
and so I started to take an interest in what
is it? What is this job? You know, these police
officers on boats. I mean that certainly is like more
exciting that what I'm doing, uh, sitting in a lifeguard stand,
you know, on Miami Beach, And certainly it seemed to

(10:52):
be more interesting and exciting than you know, eventually going
using my health and fitness management degree to work like
in a health club type setting. So and all that said,
at the same time, you have the layer of it's
like the Miami Vice era, the cocaine cowboys, all that

(11:14):
stuff's in the Miami Herald, It's on the nightly news.
So you had this this stream of of of of
imagery and and and stories, you know, like in.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Front of me.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
And then I just kind of like realized that that's
I want to be a part of that somehow, you know,
I want to I want to get involved in that.
So that's when I started to look at law enforcement
as a career.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
And you did ride along too, which that's only going
to serve the appetite even more so seeing that up close,
especially back then where it's a very different time to
be a police officer, not just in Miami but country wide. Imagine,
you know, any sort of interest you had that cemented it.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah. I did some ride alongs with the Metro Day
Police Department and in some of the rougher parts of town,
and I kind of my understanding was that to work
on the Metrodaid.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Police Marine Unit, you had to be.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
On patrol first. You know, METRODAID is a huge department
in South Florida, and they have all kinds of different
specialized units. So you need to do your time and
then eventually you can work your way into or one
of those specialized units. So, you know, I was an
applicant with Metrodaid, I was an applicant with the Florida

(12:35):
Marine Patrol.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
You know.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
At the same time, I took the Treasury Enforcement Agent
Exam because by taking that exam you could essentially get
your score and see if you're eligible to work for
Secret Service Customs, I, R, S, CID, or ATF because
they are all under the Treasury Department. At that time,

(12:59):
Treasure Department was like also on the radar screen because
you know, there had been the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan,
so the Secret Service was was you know, visible and
out there. But really, when you say visible and out there,
it's what you read in the paper and what you
saw on the TV news. You know, this is prior

(13:20):
to the Internet. There weren't really a lot of books
written about all of these different things. So it's really
what you saw on the news, and then the the
fictionalized stuff that you saw on the TV shows, you know,
whether it was a Sunday Night Movie of the Week
or you're watching Miami Vice, or you're watching some other
Aaron Spelling police series that's on television. I mean, that's

(13:44):
what kind of formed my vision of that world or
that potential career for myself.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
And then.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Add that to the fact that you know, lifeguarding, Yeah,
it's kind of boring, and so you do a lot.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Of dreaming when you're out there.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
And so you put all that together and I developed
the interests and the desire to get into law enforcement
on top on my own.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, you know, on top of that too, you're in EMT.
So that's you know, an added boost in it of
itself or not a lot of police officer more police
officers now, I should say have that certification, but back
then it was rarer, so if you wanted to go local,
which you didn't. Ultimately, you know, it was something that
only added to your high ability factors. So I guess.
I mean, listen, you took multiple federal exams, and as
you just talked about, applied for multiple federation federal agencies.

(14:38):
I should say, but just to go back a second,
why they jump to federal, Not that there's anything wrong
with that as opposed to wanting to start local. Was
it an opportunity to do more see more?

Speaker 3 (14:49):
Well, I think it was a secret service thing. Frankly,
that was like.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
The federal interest.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
I saw the customs boats, but then again I did
not have an understanding how do you get to work
on those US Customs boats. My understanding was that it's
like over at Metrodaid police. It's a specialized unit. You
work your way towards that. So you know, I took
the Treasure Enforcement Agent exam. I got a seventy one

(15:18):
point five. I mean, you have to a passing score
is a seventy. So I did not think that I
would ever get a call from any federal agency with
such a low score, because with the state and local agencies,
you had to get a very high score, right, high
nineties to be like on the desirable, you know, eligible's

(15:38):
list to get to get hired. So I kind of
discounted the whole federal thing. Although you know I took
the exam, I also went and conduct, uh, participated in
the Florida Marine Patrol Assessment, which you'd have to go
to Tallahassee, Florida, the State Police Academy. You know, it

(15:58):
was like a physical fitness thing. It was a run,
it was a swim, it was push up sit ups.
They had a panel interview that you had to go through,
and then they had an essay question that you had
a surprise essay that you had to write. And so
when I went to that Florida Marine Patrol Assessment, I
basically ranked second in all the physical stuff. There's one

(16:21):
other guy that beat me out, So I knew, okay,
I'm I'm up there, you know, in that in that
list of eligibles. But when it came time for that
to write the essay, it was my great fortune that
the surprise essay question was why would it be beneficial

(16:41):
for a law enforcement agency to have a health and
fitness program? Well, that was the premise of my entire
academic program. At the University of Miami because that program
is geared towards like these corporate fitness programs. So yeah,
completely based the essay, and then I went and did

(17:03):
the panel interview, walked away with a good feeling from that,
and so you know, it's just kind of a waiting
game at that point, because you know we're talking snail mail.
Notifications would come via the mail, and it was just
a waiting game to see, you know, who is going
to notify me of next steps or or a job offer.

(17:29):
I have to say that on the metro DAID police process,
I I didn't proceed beyond the polygraph, and I'll tell
you why. Because one of the polygraph questions was have
you ever used anabolic steroids before? And during college I

(17:53):
had my roommate was a weightlifter, bodybuilder, and I was
racing and doing triathlons, and for a period of time
I had used some. So when I admitted to that
during the polygraph or a metro DA police the polygrapher

(18:14):
literally was shocked. He stopped, he turned off the machine
and he goes, okay, we're finished. And what I was
told was that was an immediate exit out of their
hiring process because the context of prior to that, there
was this big Miami River Cops scandal where there were

(18:36):
all these MIAMIPD cops that were robbing drug tap traffickers
and there had been some homicides related to that, and
a lot of those officers were using steroids, and essentially
there was no law enforcement agency in South Florida that

(18:57):
wanted to have anybody using stick aeroids ever again, or
hire somebody that had. So that's how my you know,
application into the Metro Day Police, you know, abruptly ended.
But much to my surprise, in early January of nineteen

(19:18):
eighty seven, I'm sitting in the lifeguard stand and one
of our lieutenants calls me over the radio and tells
me to call this custom special agent at the following
phone number. And you know, literally it's you know, take
a pencil out of our first aid kit, writing the

(19:39):
number down on a box of bandage bandages, and during
my afternoon break, going back to a payphone and making
a phone call, and it was a special agent from
the Custom Service telling me to come in for an interview.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
And when is that interview.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
It's tomorrow at eleven am, and it's like, okay, well,
I guess some call them and sick at the beach
tomorrow to go to this interview, and really the rest
is history.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
You know. I went and did that interview.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
And I was kind of surprised that they didn't ask me.
It was more like background questions, you know, have have
I ever used illicit drugs?

Speaker 2 (20:17):
You know?

Speaker 3 (20:17):
Am I wanting to? Have I ever been for the
overthrow of the US government? Like all these template, boiler
plate boiler plate questions and uh And I walked out
of there, and two weeks later I got a letter
saying that I was hired by the Customer Service as
a GS seven customs investigator, which I was like, okay,

(20:43):
well I kind of get it. Customs. I'll be investigating,
and but I didn't know specifically what I'd be doing initially.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
And that would come later. Before we even get to
that component, though, which was very interesting. There's always a
training part, it doesn't matter what career and law enforcement
you're trying to pursue, no matter how long or short
may be, or it may be. Rather there's going to
be some format an academy. So what did your training
consist of besides the obvious and how long was it?

Speaker 3 (21:11):
So the Custom Service sends you to the Federal Law.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Enforcement Training Center back then.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
In Glencoe, Georgia, Brunswick, Georgia, Southeast Georgia, and you go.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
To eight weeks of the Treasury.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Department's Criminal Investigator Training program where you learn all about
federal law, federal criminal procedure, and then you also, you know, there's.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Firearms training, there's driver training, there's.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
How to process evidence, how to roll fingerprints, you know,
just like the basics of being a criminal investigator.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
So so anybody that was entering.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
A criminal investigator position in the Treasure Department, Secret Service,
Customs atf I r S, you go to that school,
along with a host of other federal agencies that don't
have their own academies.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
So let's say you're going to be.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
An investigator for an inspector General agency, which they're typically
very small, you would go to that basic course. So
that was eight weeks, and then after that we went
to the Customs Basic Investigator School where we learn more
about customs law and the Customs mission, and you know,

(22:30):
we continued our firearms training, but training with the firearms
that we would.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Be issued and.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Being assessed during these different practical exercises that were more
geared towards the customs mission, you know, interdicting smugglers and
those sorts of investigations, conducting search warrants at residences, et cetera.
So that was another eight.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Weeks in total, at sixteen weeks before you graduate.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
And I'm sure I taught you a lot. I'm sure
it prepared you for a lot, because it's a serious business,
even before you became a special agent in nineteen eighty nine,
just the preparation to be an investigator. It's not just
the of course, an understanding of the law and the
component of the books, the physical component. I'm sure if
there was one, you didn't struggle with that, but you
came out of that ready to go excited. I'm sure.
And during that time period eighty seven to eighty nine,

(23:26):
talk about the interdiction work that was done, because there
was a lot of work to be done.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, And just to back up, when I was at
the academy during training, I took it very seriously because
this was my shot. This was like my golden ticket,
and I was not going to screw it up. So
it didn't surprise me that I got I came out
of there with a physical fitness award for my class,
although I was surprised when I got like the best

(23:53):
all around or the Honor graduate award for the highest
scores for like i'mdemics and then firearms training in addition
to physical fitness. So I took it very seriously because
I didn't want to screw up my shot. And so yeah,
I came back to the Miami office and before I

(24:14):
went to the academy. So when I reported, I was
in the Miami office for two weeks before I went
to the sixteen week academy, and I found out that
I was going to work on the boats, which is
exactly what I wanted to do. I mean, I envisioned
I wanted.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
To be or have this marine law enforcement career.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
So I again I felt doubly that I won the lottery,
you know, because here I was coming in the front
door and they're like, you're going to be working on
the boats, and I'm like, great, because that's exactly what
I want to do. So when I got back from
the academy, I was assigned to one of our shifts
they ran at twenty four x seven operation the boats.

(24:57):
I was basically on the midnight shift.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
You know, worked.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
From eleven pm to seven in the morning, which you
know for somebody that worked as a lifeguard during the day,
it took some getting used to to working at night.
But at the same time, I was very excited to
have that job, and I fell into a very good group.

(25:21):
My supervisor, by the name of Joe Gulet, was an
incredible supervisor. He was like a late Vietnam era green Beret,
but he was like a mariner and he knew everything
about operating boats, sailing navigation. So it was really I

(25:42):
fell into the right place to pursue that marine law
enforcement career that I wanted. And Joe really was lighthearted
but dead serious about our work. And I always say
that he kind of perfected on the job, training and

(26:03):
ball busting all under one, because it just made for
a great learning environment, and I really everything I know
about maritime I learned from him.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
I love how it came full circle for you because
whereas unfortunately you weren't able to get onto Metro data
at the time due to your honesty, which is commendable
because that's not an easy thing to be honest about.
As you disclosed earlier, you know, ultimately you were rewarded
in the long run because you were honest and it
didn't get you that job, but it got you this job,
and it got you right where you wanted to be originally.
So it really did work out. It paved the way

(26:37):
for much of what would come later. And before I
even get to being promoted at eighty nine, you mentioned,
of course learning from a guy like that, who had
a background like that. What was the moment during those
early interdiction operations, especially with some of the foreign operations
that were being run to where you said, Holy crap,
it's real now, this is what I'm in for. In
a good way.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Of course, it got really real two weeks out of
the out of me because the boat crew that I
was assigned to on the midnight shift one night, we
responded to a report from the North Miami Police Marine
Unit at Halover Inlet, which is in North Miami, about

(27:19):
fifteen miles north of where office is in the Miami River,
that there were several go fast boats had tried to
come into the inlet and they were dumping marijuana bales
in the water and they were being chased by this
local police officer and the local police officer had chased
them offshore out out of the inlet, and we responded

(27:41):
up there and we got the quick thumbnail from that
police officer as to the boat that he chased, got
the description, and in the dead.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
And night, you know, this is like at zero two hundred.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Two am, we started pursuing what was a radar target
by our Blue Lightning Operations Center that had all of
these radars set up on condominium buildings along the beach
in South Florida. They had the boat as a radar

(28:15):
target going eastbound towards the Bahamas, towards specifically Bimini, And
so we were in the blind darkness just trying to
chase down this radar target, and we knew, or what
I learned from my partners because I was new, was

(28:36):
that the bad guys, these smugglers were going to probably
go somewhere and dump the load and then they were
going to run continue to run away from the dump
load in the ocean to another location, probably to wash
down their.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Boat from all of the burlap debris.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
From like if it's marijuana bales or bailed kilograms of cocaine,
that they would go somewhere to try to wash down
their boat so that if they were stopped by law enforcement,
there would be no evidence on the boat that they
were the boat that had the load of narcotics. So
we were continuing eastbound. At a certain point, the Blue

(29:21):
Lightning Operations Center said, we don't have the radar target anymore.
They're off radar, and we continued, and then as the
sun started coming up that morning, a Coast Guard helicopter
overflew us from west to east, so we're like, okay,
he must be responding to this situation. This pursued as well,

(29:45):
and we came down off plane and shut down our
engines because we wanted to see if we could hear
the smugglers engines and key off of that. As it
became lighter and lighter, we decided, after having a conversation

(30:07):
amongst ourselves, that we just turn around.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
And go back to.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
All Over Inlet, because we're probably at that point thirty
thirty five miles offshore, and we figured that on our
way back we may run into a debris field of
all the floating marijuana bales, and then we just recover
the marijuana and at least make a seizure of the marijuana,
and as we were getting ready to turn around. We

(30:36):
looked to the south and they were there. They were
dead in the water, about a mile south of us.
We could see the entire side of their boat profile.
We could see the color white with a blue stripe.
You could see it in the distance. And one of
the other things that could have happened was that they
broke down or they ran out of fuel. So we

(30:59):
had a towards them, and they took off back up
on plane and we continued to chase them. The Coast
Guard helicopter must have seen the pursuit and we chased
them into Bahamian waters. We chased them into Bimini Harbor,

(31:22):
you know, which is definitely you know, foreign territory. You know,
we're in a foreign country now. And as we.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Were approaching the harbor.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
Entrance, one of our our customs boats that was assigned
to work with our Bahamian counterparts, which was the Royal
Bahamas Defense Force the RBDF, we see them responding in
from the north side of Bimini. They cut across this

(31:51):
shoal and put themselves kind of in front of the pursuit,
and so we're like, okay, now we a backup, you know,
and we continued chasing the smugglers, and all of a
sudden we see this twenty five foot white Maco center
console boat come out of the harbor and he tries

(32:14):
to block our other boat get in front of them,
and they actually have a collision there in the harbor entrance, and.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
I remember all I remember seeing.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Was our customs boat that was a sign to the
Bahamas was up on top of this mako, completely up
on top of them, and our customs boat, which was
a Blue Thunder, which is kind of a famous boat,
both of its outdrives were out of the water and
you can see the propeller spinning. The smugglers that we

(32:48):
were chasing essentially continued fleeing. They went around the collision.
We rent around the collision. It was my boss, Joe Gulea,
and another guy that was on tempor re assignment and
the Bahamas, and eventually the smugglers stopped and we came
up alongside them, and I and Matt Leary went on

(33:11):
board and we took the two smugglers into custody. That
being said, we're in a foreign country. Now. We look
over at our boat that's assigned to the Bahamas, and
they don't have a Bahamian officer with them. They had
responded from our base in the middle of the night

(33:34):
and they didn't pick up a Behemian officer. So literally
we had conducted a law enforcement action in a foreign
country without any authorization whatsoever. So, uh, the decision was
made that we would Oh, the other thing was our smugglers.

(33:55):
There was nothing on board their boat. They had they
had successfully done the load. But as as we had predicted,
they had been in the process of washing down the
boat when we spotted them. Because these this smuggler boat,
the brand back then it was called Midnight Express. There

(34:17):
were large center console boats thirty seven foot with four
outboard engines. They also had these what we call a
raw water washdown system, So essentially they have a pump
that they can pump water on board and they have
a hose. And what we found was there was the
hose was was pumping water and there was like a

(34:39):
blue nylon brush like on a on a pole that
they must have been using to scrub down the boat
when we spotted them. So but they had successfully dumped
the load. So the decision was made that we would
just take the two smugglers back to Miami and we

(35:00):
we did that, we took them back and then, much
to our surprise, upon our arrival back at the customs house.
Other the day's shift, the Coast Guard, the Florida Marine Patrol,
North Miami Police, they essentially had recovered part of the
load that was found floating in the ocean. They recovered

(35:21):
a second boat that had been abandoned off the beach
and haulover that had nobody on board, but it was
completely loaded and stacked up on the dock was twelve
pounds of marijuana and marijuana bales. So for the for
the day, I guess, you know, we were the heroes.

(35:42):
But in the reality, we had, you know, violated law
in the Bombas.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
And I had no idea the border was that close.
I have to plead ignorance on that one. I mean,
it's good to have partners in that agency. I didn't
realize how close, at least from a maritime perspective, that
the border was.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah. So you know, the Bahamas is forty seven nautical
miles from from Miami, and you know, our customs waters
extends out twelve miles, so the state limit is three miles,
but then customs waters is twelve miles, so yeah, everything's
relatively close. And the Bahamas and specifically the Bimini Island

(36:24):
chain where we chase those guys into, has been a
stage and location and a waypoint for smugglers for decades
and decades.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
I can see why. Peterstrowski's our guest hereing the Mike
Threaven podcast. As I mentioned, he's an entire agent out
of the HSI was in customs pre its merger with
the Border Patrol in two thousand and three, thirty one
year career in law enforcement for this volume nineteen up
the beat, so that brings us into eighty nine, making
special agent. I mean, this was again one of several
landmark achievements over the course of your career. You've done

(36:58):
a lot. That story alone is just scratching the surface
of what happened in those two years, and this would
envelop an eight years career of your career rather from
eighty nine up until nineteen ninety seven. So now the
stakes changed a little bit. The mission still the same,
but as far as the purview of what you can do,
that's changed. So just tell me about adjusting to that
rank and some of the early operations you took on

(37:18):
as a new special agent at that time.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, well, you know, I was sorry to leave the
boats because after that pursuit, the rest of my time
on the boats, I had a lot of underway time.
I ended up going back to the Bahamas. I did
lots of joint ops with our Behaming counterparts, lots of activity,
but no other bus.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
So it was.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
Kind of a dismal time. You know, it didn't meet
my desires for my time on the boat. So when
I left the boats in nineteen eighty nine to go
over to an investigative group, I was kind of walking
away disappointed with my time on the boats, although you know,

(38:05):
I became a season mariner and definitely you know, a
decent marine law enforcement officer. But so I left the boats.
I went over to our Exports Investigative group, which basically
investigates illegal exports of US munitions, lists, items, controlled commodities.

(38:26):
They investigate violations of US embargoes and sencsions. So it
was kind of like a light collar group. And so
the only reason I went to that group, where I
was brought into that group was because they needed a
Spanish speaker. So it was like, you're here because we

(38:47):
need a Spanish speaker. You'll learn what we do by doing,
you know, And so it took me a bit to
get used to that, but I found my niche, which
was working illegal exports.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Of firearms, smuggling firearms mainly.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Back then, a lot of the firearms were being smuggled
to South America into the Caribbean. The guns going to
South America were either going to the traffickers or going
or being smuggled by people that are trying to protect
themselves from traffickers down there in South America. So I

(39:32):
got into that. I fell into this one case where
the Dutch Criminal Intelligence Service came to us and they
were investigating some Cuban Americans from Miami that were providing
firearms and ammunition and training to some rebels and Surinam

(39:54):
Surnams a Dutch former Dutch colony and the North He's
part of South America.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
So they were.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Investigating these individuals in Surinam and then I started conducting
like a collateral investigation here in the United States and
I was able to identify several of them and some
planes that were involved with these guys, and it was

(40:27):
kind of fortuitous that one of them got busted in
Aruba with a Beach eighteen, which is like a tail
dragger airplane, and it was loaded with ammunition of all
various calibers, and it had two firearms that were secreted
up underneath the instrument panel, and so we became aware

(40:51):
of that. I ended up going to Aruba and meeting
with a law enforcement down there and conducting traces on
this firearms, and the firearms traced back to the pilot.
He had bought them at a Miami gun shop, and
we were able to do a successful prosecution of him.

(41:12):
And it was it was interesting because that plane he
you know, back then, this is before digital cameras. We're
talking like little one, ten and thirty five millimeter cameras.
What else was on that plane? Well, on that plane
were sets of photographs that I guess he was bringing

(41:32):
down to the rebels to give to the rebels, which
were photographs that documented their previous activities. So it they
had photographs of these Cuban American guys conducting weapons training
for the rebels and conducting explosives training for them, photographs

(41:54):
of them in towns that were you know, attacked by them,
and in and we were able to successfully match all
of the ammunition that we found on the planes with
all of the firearms depicted in those photographs. So it
made for a decent, you know, air type case against

(42:17):
that smuggler pilot who had the firearms. So I kind
of cut my teeth on that case. And then I
also another case kind of came my way, which was
back then.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
That was the Carter not the Carter Area.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
This is a Bill Clinton era. Yeah, So there was
a lot of stuff going on with Cuba, meaning the
Office of ourn Assets Control and the Treasury Department had
all these rules where basically you could not travel to Cuba,
or you could not do any business in Cuba without

(43:03):
a license. You couldn't provide travel services even to persons
that were going to Cuba for humanitarian reasons without a
license from the Treasury Department. And a case came our
way from the Miami Police Department where there was a
suspected travel agency on Southwest a Street, Kyocho, that was

(43:25):
selling that was not registered with the Treasure Department and
they were selling unlicensed travel services to Cuba. So I
teamed up with Alex Alonso and Miles On and Alex.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Was going to be the undercover agent to.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Go in and purchase travel services from this travel agency,
and you know, he was able to do so. You know,
we're talking old school back then for all of the
old school detectives and FEDS that are watching and listening.
You know, Alex was using a Nagra recorder, which is

(44:05):
a small reel to reel inside of like a man purse,
to record the audio with the target, and he was
able to buy some of these travel services. But then
what we ended up realizing was that besides doing unlicensed
travel services, this guy was ripping off like sixty percent

(44:25):
of his customers. And so we were able to do
a search warrant on the business and identify this what
was also a large scale fraud, you know, against all
of these Cuban Americans and that were trying to go
back to Cuba for humanitarian reasons. So you know, probably

(44:50):
six out of ten customers were defrauded by him, and
we did a federal prosecution on that. But that was
the first time I got to work with Alex and Miles.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
There'd be several more to follow, of course, And that's
that's the thing to keep in mind too. It's when
you talk about customs a lot of people automatically, and
I can understand why go towards things like, okay, getting
illegal firearms off the streets and off the seas, and
also too getting illegal narcotics off the streets and off
the seas by extension. But it's a lot of work
like this too. And it's cases like that where you're
able to really track individuals like this down who are

(45:24):
defrauding those with innocent intentions. That has to make an
extra rewarding and reminds you why you're so glad to
do the job you do.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
Yeah, you never know what you're gonna stumble into. You know,
once once you get in the door, and once you
do a search warrant and and you've got all of
somebody's documents and records and really and what you're saying,
Mike describes the wide breath of the Legacy Customs mission.

(45:51):
You know, it's very wide. You know, the contraband mission,
the money laundering mission, some of the national security stuff
that we get involved in, and you know that is
carried forward in the modern day, you know, mad security investigations.
So yeah, you just never know what you're going to
get into when you're looking at some kind of transnational

(46:15):
international crime, you know, or cross border crime.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
And international situations or international tensions, whatever they may be
at the top kind of factor into the work too.
You mentioned a lot was going on with Cuba at
this time, a lot was going on with terrorism too.
The focus, I think, after the Trade Center was hit
the first time in nineteen ninety three went, I mean,
even though narcotics was still the name of the game,
getting that off the streets and off the season, the

(46:40):
focus even before nine to eleven went a lot towards
its counter terrorism as well, and that was part of
your duties. And even in the mid nineties, it was
still a concern for major cities, and it came home
to roost originally with that bombing in the Trade Center
in February of ninety three. So just tell me about
getting involved with the warrants Team's Special Response team. And also,
you know, again the JTTF has been around a long time.

(47:00):
People think of it more after nine to eleven, but
the JTTF was around then, So tell me about you're
involved with that during that time period.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, so, just by meeting other cops, you know, local detectives,
and realized that the Joint Terrorism Task Force based at
FBI Miami and North Miami Beach. Back then, their Joint
Terrorism Task Force was investigating these anti Castro militants that

(47:26):
were in Miami. There was several different groups around Miami
where they had training camps and you know, they aspired
to one day overthrow Fidel Castro by force through violence.
And at the same time, in Miami, every now and

(47:47):
again there would be like a bombing of like a
a business that was like sympathetic to the Castro government
allegedly or or not. So uh, there was a lot
going on, like on both sides of the equation. So
I got involved working over at JTTF, first on a

(48:08):
part time basis, but then on a full time basis.
And really what our our our mission was was to
deter and avert, uh, these attacks that were being conducted
by some of these anti Castro militant groups because essentially

(48:30):
what they were doing, you know, they had all the
right to have a training camp and and shoot firearms
and and train themselves, but what they started to do
was conducting what we coin were aquatic drive by shootings
of like Cuban tourist hotels. Well, when I say Cuban

(48:54):
meaning located in Cuba. A lot of the tourist hotels
along the Cuban beaches are actually owned by.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
European firms and European concerns. And so.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
What some of these groups were doing was they would
get in like a go fast boat launched from the Florida.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Keys, like three guys with three.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
Rifles, ammunition, flakfests, and helmets, and they would go off
the beaches, these tourist hotel beaches and they would shoot
at the hotels and they would shoot at the beach goers.
And in their minds, these militant groups, they felt that
if they could ruin or precipitate that they could ruin

(49:38):
the tourism economy in Cuba, it could precipitate the downfall
or the fall of gas Root. But that being said,
the US government didn't want to have US persons essentially
doing that activity. So our job was to deter them

(50:00):
or avert these attacks. Really wasn't two arrest them, but
it was more about dismantling their ability to do so,
because what we found was there was a like it
was like a cyclical process. These groups would like raise funds,
they would buy armaments and boats, they would go do

(50:23):
one of these aquatic dry by shootings of a tourist hotel,
and then with that success that they could teut they
could raise more funds to do it again. So we
were just trying to break that cycle of activity because
you know, the Clinton administration did not want you know,
these kinds of unsanctioned activities by US person So, you know,

(50:47):
I found myself in a good position to use our
customs authority, our outbound enforcement authority, to along with my partners,
specifically MIAMIPD, Metro Dad police detectives, and our FBI agents
to interdict them, whether it was at the boat ramp

(51:12):
or driving down the highway with a load of guns
to points unknown to go launch an attack, or even
after a successful attack upon their return to the United States,
you know, with their boat and their arms and ammunition.
So the Custom Service found itself in a good position

(51:34):
to you know, take action against them. And it was
because we we had this what I call like this
beautiful law and that it's Title twenty two US Code,
section four oh one, that allowed us to seize arms
and ammunition that were intended for illegal export, being illegally exported,

(52:00):
or having previously been exported, So it put us really
in the perfect position.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
To take action against these groups and to.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
You know, reduce their activities that the US government did
not want to happen at the time, you know, because essentially,
you know, all of your export controls, your US embargos
and sanctions, they're all in furtherance of national security and
US foreign policy objectives. So really that's where we found ourselves.

(52:31):
It was it was the US foreign policy at the
time that they had We had a policy of restraint.
The US government was not doing anything with the Cubans,
either against them or or with them.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
So we certainly.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Didn't want, when I say we, the US government did
not want US persons taking their own actions that were uncentioned.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Especially at this time that the war in the Balkans,
or military action in the Balkans, was getting closer and closer,
because the primary focus at least nineteenninety six, nineteen ninety seven,
nineteen eighty eight into nineteen thnety nine really of the
clint administration was taking down Slovana Belosovitch. So was a headache,
I mean, which is an operation in and of itself
ultimately successful one by the Clinton administration but it was
a headache that certainly that administration did not need and

(53:24):
did not watch. Was Castro an enemy, Yes he was,
But was he an enemy in that moment?

Speaker 2 (53:28):
No.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Kind of brings me back to something Phil Donahue said
about Saddam Husaint many years ago. Saddam was a bastard,
but he was our bastards. The coate that Phil dona
Hugh uttered about him. You can kind of say the
same thing about Castro at that point in time.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
Yeah, And there was a lot going on at that
time because we had the Brothers to the Rescue that
were doing their patrols over the streets of Florida looking
for rafters. Yeah, the Cubans shot down two of the
Brothers' planes.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
We now know that we had anamntas he was the
Cuban spot on the Tila It was operating at that
same time. So there was a lot of a lot
of stuff going on between the United States and Cuba
that neither didn't grab that Balkans headline. You know that
the rest of the world was aware about. But there

(54:16):
was plenty going on, especially the fact that when the
Brothers to the Rescue were shot down, essentially the brothers
had been infiltrated by a Cuban spy and he essentially
caused that shootdown. So there was a lot going on.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
A lot going on. And I saw one of your
posts on that on Instagram a while ago where one
of the shootings or one of the planes that was
shot down, four people were killed. The intent was good ultimately,
but they paid with their lives due to what you
said earlier with that spy getting involved. And man, I
tell you you know again, I hate to say it,
but that mission that these individuals were on would drive
by attacks. With how you described it, it almost sounds

(54:56):
not almost, it kind of does sound like a terrorism network,
because that's what terrorism organizations do. They do these attacks.
They get the funding, they have supporters rapid enough for
the cause, get these funds up to keep doing more attacks.
It doesn't matter what the intent is. If you define it,
that's a terrorist organization in a nutshell by definition.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
Yeah, And I would say that at the time, we
did not use that terminology on that group of people
because of the nature of you know, how South Florida
is comprised and built up, you know, so we just
called them anti castro militants. Or anti Castro groups. We
didn't use the terrorist word, and you know, these groups

(55:37):
just felt that, well, you know, hey, there was the
Beta Pigs invasion. Why can't we do our own And
the case was that the US government did not want
individual actors and groups doing those activities. That being said,
you know, my second uncle was involved in the Beta Pigs.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Invasion and he was captured.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
And he ended up he was released when JFK did
the big deal with Castro for the medicines and the foods,
and so you know, to say that I was in it,
I've been in it like my whole life.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Of course, of course, and again the sentiment is understandable.
But there's a there's a meme that's going around in
the last few years, not on that, just in general
or but somebody does something with the right intention but
not exactly the right execution. The meme is he's a
little confused, but he's got the spirit. That was one
of those instances where art was in the right place,
but the execution of it was was of course a

(56:38):
little bit, say the least.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yeah, And you know, you mentioned a.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Word their spirit, and I would say that.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
When you you look at custom special agents and even
now HSI Special Agents. Whether you're in South Florida or
the Southwest border or the Pacific Northwest, there's always been
this strong spirit of finding a row because of your desire,

(57:08):
your will, your craftiness to debt your man meaning to
catch the smuggler. And I think that's where that is
the custom spirit. It's been in existence for a long
time and it still provodes to the inside of AJASI
when they work these difficult cases against these transnational groups

(57:32):
and cartels.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Absolutely, I did want to ask about this as a
sidebar because I've been trying to get this man on
the show for years and I'm going to I don't
care what it takes. But in between his tintsis New
York City Police Commission, people forget he also was the
head of Customers for a while when Ray Kelly came in.
I've been asking this to Alex Miles and Bob. People
loved happened in Customers having Ray Kelly as their boss,
and I just want to get your perspective on that.

(57:55):
What was it like to work for because people forget
he was part of Customers for a while. He did
a great job.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Yeah, we were glad because it's like we had like
one of not just New York's fin Us, but America's
find Us leading our agency. So we were all very
excited to have Ray Kelly as the commissioner. After my
assignment on JTTF, I actually went back to the boats

(58:23):
before I left South Florida, and I worked back in
the Marine Investigations Group, which was eight special agents and
eight boat drivers. And I remember having the opportunity to
brief Commissioner Kelly about some of our activities in the
boat program because we had it seemed like a couple

(58:47):
times a month we were involved in pursuits and with
drug smugglers again coming out of.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Vimini like they were back, and they were back.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
In a big way. And some of these pursuits, you know,
there were collisions, there was gunfire, and I remember talking
to Commissioner Kelly about what was going on, and I said, Hey,
I'm not trying to brag about it, but this is

(59:19):
probably the most dangerous job in the Custom Service currently,
what we're doing right now, because again it was all
of these dead of night boat pursuits and and he
he savvyed that, you know, and I know that after
I left that group and and other Marine enforcement groups

(59:44):
in South Florida. You know, got uh more resources, more more,
more equipment, more funding because I think a person like
Kelly recognized, you know, than he the gaps and and
that we could filling oops of course.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Yeah. Yeah. And he was there in total, if you
combine his time as Secretary of the Treasury five years.
He got there the summer of ninety six. He left
at the conclusion of the Clinton administration in January of
two thousand and one. And honestly, I mean, granted, I
don't know if the Bush administration would have kept him,
but if not for his ambitions to return as New
York City Police commission which he was ultimately successful in
doing and became the longest serving commissioner in the NYPD's

(01:00:24):
ever had at that. You know, that was an assignment.
I'm sure he would have stayed in longer if he
didn't have those ambitions, because anybody that knows him well,
from what I've heard, he really enjoyed that was that
was a sweet spot for him. And again, what's not
to enjoy. You had a lot of hard working, driven
agents working under you, and him being a former marine himself,
you know, that was kind of his DNA and his makeup.
Now nineteen ninety seven, It's an interesting point in your

(01:00:46):
career because you had done so much at that point
in Miami. To that point, the only place you'd spent
your career was in Florida, and now you go somewhere
completely different, and that is Blaine, Washington. On one hand,
new assignment. You know, you do, you're told you go,
and you make the best of it. But it's quite
the paradox from the beaches of South Florida to Washington State.

(01:01:07):
So tell me about going down there and just making
the best of a brand new situation where you got
to get used to the people you're working with and
they got to get used to you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
Yeah, you know, I think I also had the spirit
of my father that you know, here's here. My dad
grew up in China, lived in Cuba, came to the
United States as a self made man, and I kind
of had that same spirit myself that I wanted to
really see other parts of the country and take advantage

(01:01:38):
of opportunities in my career to do that. And I
wasn't necessarily tied to Miami, so my wife and I
had traveled a few times in the Pacific Northwest, and
we kind of saw that all of that outdoor recreation.
We wanted that to be like our backyard. And you know,

(01:02:00):
I was essentially willing to like start over again somewhere
else because.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
With ten years of experience, with ten years of Miami.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Experience under my belt, I felt that I could I
could do that elsewhere and be successful.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
And so.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
It's funny our our special agent in charge, you know,
May she rest in peace, Bonnie Tishler, who I asked her,
how is it that I could get a transfer to
the Pacific Northwest And she's like, She's like, Peter Ostrowski,
you out of your mind, Like why would you want
to go up there? That's like a retirement spot. It's

(01:02:43):
like if you if you if you stay here in
South Florida, you're certainly you know, to become a supervisor.
Or she's like when I because she was transferring to
headquarters to be Ray Kelly is Assistant Commissioner for enforcement,

(01:03:03):
you know, over investigations. She's like, or you can come
with me and some people that I'm taking to headquarters.
And I was like, well, you know, I'm not I'm
really not there yet. I really want to stay in
the field and can continue working. And the Pacific Northwest
is where I want to go, and so I had

(01:03:25):
I had asked her, how how you know how to
do that? And she's like, well, if those people out
there really want you have their special agent charge, give
me a call and I'll see what.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
I can do.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
That being said a couple of weeks prior to that,
because I was still in our maritime group before I
left Miami, and I had been involved in a boat
chase and a collision with.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
A smuggler boat where.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
The smuggler boat collided with us and ended up on
top of our boat, and that boat missed me by
i'll tell you, probably two feet. I was standing forward
on the deck and when that boat hit us, I
fell to the deck and I looked up and I
was looking at the underside of that boat, and Mike,

(01:04:20):
I have to tell you that at the time, I
was holding a shotgun and I still do not know
to this day whether that boat knocked the shotgun out
of my hand or I let go of the shotgun
and the shotgun went overboard. But we never found that shotgun.

(01:04:42):
We were thirty miles offshore of Miami.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
One in the morning.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
So you know, I had been almost killed in that pursuit.
And so that being said, you know, this special Agent charge,
Bonnie Tishler, kind of knew who I was at that point.
So when she made that offer, she's like, well, I'll

(01:05:08):
see what I can do. I really didn't expect anything,
but I had already met some of the management in Seattle,
and I made a phone calling out out there and
I was like, hey, if you guys are interested in me,
you know, the future Assistant Commissioner says told me to
tell you to call her. And the next thing I know,

(01:05:31):
I get a letter in the mail and I'm I'm
reassigned to the Blaine, Washington office. So you know, we
move out there. I'm very excited to be out there. Blaine, Washington.
It's on the US Canada border with British Columbia. Back then,
it was a very small office. It was sixteen special agents.
There was two investigative groups. There was the drug group

(01:05:53):
and the non drug group. I landed Blaine, and I'm
the new guy, and they essentially wanted to free up
all of the guys in the drug group to work
like longer term investigations instead of just like these little

(01:06:14):
border hits, you know, border response cases. And I was
told right away it's like you and this other special
agent are basically our border response guys. You handle every
border case that comes along. And somebody hearing that would go, oh,

(01:06:35):
that's an awful assignment. Actually it was an incredible assignment
because there's this case after case is coming your way,
and we had all these opportunities to conduct cold convoys,
which are like cold surveillances from the border of criminals
that or smugglers that had drug loads. Back then, it

(01:06:58):
was the start of the British Columbia Marijuana era bc
bud high grade indoor grown marijuana in Canada. It was
being smuggled from British Columbia, Canada down into the West
Coast in the United States. High grade it fetched about
three thousand dollars a pound in Los Angeles, so it

(01:07:20):
was highly desirable. So my partner and I handled like
all of these small cases, you know, we're talking three pounds,
five pounds, ten pounds. But so we were there like
on the ground floor of like all of these.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Border cases.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
We do control deliveries, you know, from the border with
these loads, arresting additional individuals downstream that we're receiving the
marijuana loads. But then it just grew, it exploded. It
went from a ten pound.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Case, which would be worth like thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
Thousand dollars in Los Angeles, to all a sudden seventy pounds,
twenty one hundred dollar case, two hundred and ten thousand
dollars case right and value of narcotics. Then it went
to like from a seventy pound case to like one
hundred and fifty three hundred pounds, six hundred pounds. So

(01:08:19):
it just proliferated, and so we were there like at
ground zero. So it was a great way for me
to cut my teeth in this new place. And a
lot of these cases were vehicles with hidden compartments, commercial
vehicles coming through the ports of entry. Then we started

(01:08:42):
seeing maritime cases, so similar to the smuggling in South
Florida from Vimini, we started seeing the smuggling of Canadian
marijuana from the Gulf Islands into the San Juan Islands,
which is part of Washington States, Washington County that's offshore
between US and the Canadian Islands. So I really ended

(01:09:04):
up and there's.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
A great timing to do there to.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
Experience all this stuff, you know, on the ground floor.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Sounds like it. And that's the thing to our point
earlier in the conversation we were having in regards to
people not paying attention to so much to incidents in Cuba,
intensions between Cuba and the US versus tensions between the
US and the Balkans the nineties. Same thing. People are
thinking about smuggling through the Mexican border. People are thinking
about smuggling through the Miami Cuban border. They're not thinking
anything about Blaine, Washington. Yet look at what's going on.

(01:09:33):
You wouldn't look at it and think as much as happening.
But again, the Canadian US border being as volatile place
as it could be for smugglers to come in and
do their bit, rather be any kind of contraband not
just shrugs or guns, illegal cigarettes for example, or anything else.
Look at how much work was being done. So you know, again,
I can't say this enough. You could never judge a
book by its cover, because look how busy you were.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
Right and across the border in British Columbia, we had
multiple Hell's Angels chapter that were involved. We had Indo
Canadian you know, organizations which are you know, Indians that
are landed in Canada. There were Vietnamese Canadian organizations that
were involved in the smuggling of marijuana. There were just

(01:10:15):
like these home grown like what I would call like
white guys Caucasian guys in Canada that were involved in
the activity. But what we found out was that the
well established groups they were just using marijuana smuggling as
a means to generate revenue inside of the United States,

(01:10:39):
or to have revenue inside the United States so that
they could interact with Mexican organizations and buy cocaine loads
for smuggling cocaine loads into Canada, specifically into British Columbia,
and then for distribution in British Columbia beyond into Eastern Canada,

(01:11:02):
for distribution from British Columbia into the Pacific Rim, into Japan,
into Australia, into New Zealand. So what ended up being
was that the Canadian DTOs were linking up with the
Mexican cartels in the United States. They were using the

(01:11:23):
United States as a bridge to each other. They were
using United States highway infrastructure to transport product.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
They were using.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
United States communications infrastructure, you know, mobile phone networks to
communicate to perpetrate these crimes. And what you got to
realize is that, so on the northern border, we have
the US Border Patrol essentially looking for southbound traffic from

(01:11:57):
from Canada into the United States, buts don't have their
version of a border patrol on their side of the border.
So you have the US Border Patrol essentially looking for
traffic in both directions, but the northbound traffic is more
difficult to interdict.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
And the reason is this is that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
Once somebody smuggling let's say a backpackup coke into Canada
on foot, once they've set off this, let's say there's
a trail that the border patrol has seismic sensors.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
On, they're gone. They're gone across.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
The border into Canada, and the border patrol can't chase
them into Canada.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
So it's very.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
Difficult to interdict the northbound between the ports of entry.
So the Canadian DTOs were very successful in what they
were doing, but they were not just marijuana organizations. They
were like poly drug organizations, and some of them were

(01:13:01):
just more interested in trafficking a cocaine because that's where
the profit was for them.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
And again using the US as a stepping stone. The
US wasn't the primary basis for their operations. It was
a worldwide level as you just described. But it's kind
of like again, if you want to go through Boston,
if you want to go from New York to Boston,
or Boston to New York, you cut through Connecticut. You're
not interested in stopping anywhere Connecticut, but just you have
a destination of mind. But it's a stepping stone. No
different here where you're talking about trafficking. Before I move ahead,

(01:13:29):
any dealings because they were prevalent at this time with
trafficking as well, and they always have been. Any dealings
with the Canadian mob and all of your cases are
not really yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
Mean they were involved, they were just one of the
many groups that were involved in the business, you know,
prior to the whole piece of bud then taking off
most of the marijuana or hash loads going into Canada.
Hashish were coming across the Pacific Ocean on motherships. And

(01:13:58):
then the Canadian growers realized that they could do this
indoor high grade marijuana grows, and they basically switched and
some organizations still tried to do Canadian organizations still tried
to send like a ship down to South America to

(01:14:18):
pick up like a huge cocaine load and smuggle it
into Vancouver Island. But the majority of them figured out that, well,
there's a lot of coke right across the border in
America that the Mexican cartels and the Mexican groups are
bringing in, and we're not challenged going into Canada because

(01:14:41):
there's no Canadian border patrol. So they pretty much switched
exclusively to doing all their operations through the United States,
and you name it. All methods of transportation were being
used for smuggling in the Pacific Northwest. Passenger cars, commercial trucks,

(01:15:04):
small boats, kayaks, sailboats, small planes, helicopters. That was all
in play. So I was really able to take, you know,
everything that I learned in South Florida and apply it
up there. And it was literally I used to call
it the New Frontier because it was it was it

(01:15:29):
was just like the new.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
Area in the United States of concern.

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
And you know, the other thing was that when we
were investigating smugglers, whether they were on boats, planes, or helicopters,
you kind of it was a thinking man's game. It
was not just hey, here they come. They're coming towards us,
They're coming from north to south. There's the smugglers. It

(01:15:53):
could be a smuggler coming down empty to pick up
a cokeload, to smuggle the coke looad to Canada. So
it was really like a thinking man's game.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
You had to.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
Know what you were looking at, do a lot of
surveillance to realize what you had. And you definitely did
not want to jump the gun on a smuggler because
you may come up with just.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
An empty vehicle or an empty compartment.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
So you wanted to kind of let things play out
and watch things develop and then decide what kind of
action you're going to take. So it required a lot
of surveillance, and you know, I think you know it's
still a tried and true investigative technique across the inner agency, state, local,

(01:16:46):
federal surveillance, you know, wins the day when the bad
guys or the smugglers don't know that they're being watched
and we just watched them commit the crime and catch
them red handed.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
So it's a matter of patience too, because to your point,
they're coming in with nothing, yet you know where they're going.
It's no secret where they're going, but it's a delicate
legal line to walk because you can't arrest somebody for
what they haven't done yet.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
That's and that's the key to undercover work, successful undercover work.
That is, let's watch you actually do it, and then hey,
it's like, hey, gotcha, you're on candon camera, and down
they go for the count, you know, and then again
it's right on tape. And if they're smart, they'll take
a plea deal. Some aren't, some are, Some fight it
and they end up going jail for longer. Moving ahead,
you make a supervisory special agent in two thousand and

(01:17:32):
a year later nine to eleven, it's now two thousand
and one to two thousand and three. Is a bit
of a world win because September eleventh, two thousand and
one takes place, and it's a ripple effect. Local law
enforcement has changed forever, especially in larger cities where, especially
in New York City, the focus becomes counter terrorism. We
mentioned Ray Kelly earlier when he came back his NYPD commissioner.
It's one of the first things he made it his

(01:17:54):
mission to build the NYPD into and he did, and federally,
of course, the same thing was going to take place
because a lot of pe people, once the details came out, looked,
particularly at the FBI and CIA, and said, hey, what
gives why weren't you guys talking to each other? And
then of course that ribble effect reaches you guys to
where two thousand and three, the merger happens between Border
Patrol and Customs into what it is now, which is

(01:18:16):
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE. Some people
liked the merger, some people didn't, But obviously it was
a necessity for its time. But it's still in place
over twenty years later. When it happened in two thousand
and three, were you a proponent of it and opponent
of it or you didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:18:30):
Care because the majority of our work in the Blame
Washington office was contraband smuggling, dark smuggling. To me, it
was like no effect. It's like, Okay, now we have
these guys from the former Border Patrol Anti smuggling unit

(01:18:54):
who were humans smuggling. Now they're a part of our office,
and it's like, okay, that kind of coincides with what
we do because we're all about pursuing smugglers. So it's like, yeah,
these guys are now the experts in the human smuggling side,
so to me, it really had not much effect. We
also had a lot of good interagency cooperation prior to

(01:19:16):
nine to eleven because with the RCMP, with the Border
Patrol and the Custom Service, we had created what was
called the Integrated Border Enforcement Team operating in British Columbia,
specifically in that Blaine, Washington, Lower Mainland of British Columbia area.
So we were already working with the Border Patrol, we

(01:19:39):
were already working with Canada Customs and RCMP closely in
this team concept. So I think that set us up
where the merger wasn't a big deal. You know if
I tell you that when the merger came and ICE,

(01:19:59):
you know, because out they created ICE and we were
part of the ICE Office of Investigations instead of a
Custom Service Office of Investigations. The only noticeable thing for
me was like, oh, why are we doing time cards now?
That was like a Border Patrol or an ions thing
where they did time cards, and it's like we had

(01:20:21):
never done time cards in the Custom Service because we
were like maybe somebody was doing them in the background,
but I never personally had to do one. So when
I tell you that, administratively, I noticed like this difference,
but operationally we are already operating together as one for

(01:20:43):
quite some time prior to that, so the merger really
didn't have any effect. And also because of BC BUD,
the whole advent of the smuggling from British Columbia, our
office was already growing prior to nine to eleven. I mean,
we went from a two group office by the time.

(01:21:05):
By the time I made supervisor in two thousand, there
was a three group office and the third group was
like an Intel group that I was supervising. That was
my first supervisory assignment. But then we grew to a fourth,
a fifth, a sixth group all before and during nine

(01:21:25):
to eleven, so you know we, I mean before and
during the merger, So like nine to eleven happened. I
was the Intel group supervisor, but we continued to grow
even before the merger because of the whole pieces BUD threat,
drug smuggling threat on the northern border. So I think

(01:21:45):
we were well well established prior to that in.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
The border excuse me not the boarder. The merger of
only helped cement that. So in your case, obviously it
was a boost, and I think across the board in hindsight,
it was again necessary for time, and it's still necessary
now considering a lot of the operations that were going on,
and the big thing was national security on all fronts,
and unfortunately it was reactionary. We wish this didn't have

(01:22:11):
to happen in the first place. But if there's any
silver linings that came out of such a horrible tragedy
of which the twenty fourth anniversaries in ten days hard
to believe, it is the emphasis and help that a
lot of these law enforcement agencies received more of an
emphasis on interagency collaboration, which was, as you said, already
taking place. It was just taking place in the heightened
sense after that day. You know, you had a lot

(01:22:34):
of seminal moments in your career. I think one of
them is two thousand and five Operation Frozen Timber, because
it was the first of its kind, and here you
were almost twenty years into things. You've been involved a
long time. At this point, you're a supervisor. You hadn't
seen everything, but you've been around the block once or twice,
so I imagine by this point nothing really was going
to shock you. But Nevertheless, this was cool because this
was something that again was very too unique to you,

(01:22:57):
very unique to your group, and led to mass arrest
and a CNN feature for positive press, which the agency
can always benefit from. So just tell me about what
it entailed and ultimately seeing that process through to forty
six the rest on top of that massive seizures.

Speaker 3 (01:23:12):
Yeah, well, just prior.

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
To Frozen Timber, the first.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
Northern Border Air Branch and the Custom Service was established
in Bellingham, Washington, and my mainly because of all the.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
Investigative activity that and the.

Speaker 3 (01:23:35):
Threat that had been identified.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
By our group, the maritime threat.

Speaker 3 (01:23:39):
The small plane threat in the Pacific Northwest involving the
smuggling of drugs, so that new air branch was established.
Prior to that, we had some TDY pilots, temporary duty
pilots come up from Sacramento, San Diego that bring up
a plane. They would help us with surveillance suppor we

(01:24:00):
are super successful, and thus in late two thousand and four,
that air branch was established. Also in late two thousand
and four, the former roommate of a target that we
had investigated in nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
We assisted the.

Speaker 3 (01:24:24):
Canadian provincial law enforcement agency with their investigation of a
suspected helicopter smuggler smuggler that was smuggling marijuana and a helicopter.
We assisted them with their case in nineteen ninety nine.
It was kind of like a standalone case. We interdicted
a couple of loads off of that helicopter to help

(01:24:44):
the Canadians make their case in Canada. So fast forward
to late two thousand and four, the roommate of that
pilot from the nineteen ninety nine case comes to the border.
Guys get called. That guy in his car has a

(01:25:08):
satellite telephone and he has a map for the Okanagan
National Forest, which is the national Force, which is on
the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains due east of US.
But at that time of the year, in the winter,
the main road to get over there is actually snowed in.

(01:25:32):
Instead of doing a two hour drive, you have to
go way south to Everett, Washington and drive over and
it takes you five and a half hours to get
to that area. So here we have the former roommate
of a smuggler pilot with a sat phone with a
map for that area, and some of the guys in
my group responded up there followed him and that was

(01:25:57):
the beginning of Operation Frozen Timber. We essentially determined that
in the Methal Valley, which is north of Winthrop.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
Washington, in.

Speaker 3 (01:26:10):
US forest Land, that's where these Canadian offloaders were meeting
helicopters and offloading bc BY marijuana loads, everything from like
a three hundred pound load to a nine hundred pound loads,
sometimes in multiple flights in like one morning. And what

(01:26:32):
we determined our in our investigation was that some of
these offloads could happen and as little as forty three
seconds and or maybe as long as two.

Speaker 2 (01:26:43):
And a half minutes. So they are happening in these.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
Locations in the National Forest locations where it would be
very difficult to do surveillance. It'd be very difficult to
do air survey because you're already at altitude in the
terrain in these this mountainous forested area, and so it

(01:27:11):
was it was quite the challenge. But what we determined
was that we could use some surveillance technology on these
offloaders vehicles. We started figuring out where the offloaders would
rent vehicles, and soon soon after that we started discovering

(01:27:33):
the locations in the forest that were in use by
these smugglers. And how we confirmed it was we use
some remotely activated video surveillance systems in the forest to
essentially burn tape, burn videotape, and every now and then

(01:27:54):
we'd go back out these locations, we'd pull the tape,
we'd watch it and we'd go, oh wow. A Robinson
R twenty two landed here, you know, two mornings ago
with a sling load of large duffel bags and he
was met by a guy in a minivan and they
conducted an offload. So with that intelligence, we started developing

(01:28:20):
like an enforcement plan on how to take these guys down.
But again it's, you know, it's a thinking man's game.
It's the Northern Border. You have to let things kind.

Speaker 2 (01:28:33):
Of mature and see.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
What's really happening. You just can't jump the gun because
you may not get anything. The other thing was there
was an inherent danger with trying to interdict the helicopter
because already some of the smugglers in Canada had crashed
their helicopters. One guy had crashed a helicopter taking his
girlfriend for a joy ride, and one weekend he actually

(01:28:57):
rolled it over on liftoff and killed her in a
jet ranger.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
So we had to be very.

Speaker 3 (01:29:04):
Careful as to how we're going to go about what
we're going to do, and we decided that the best
thing was to allow these guys to offload and to
follow them out and then do a car stop or
some people call it a roadkill down the road and
take them off that way and basically let the helicopters

(01:29:25):
go back to Canada. But what we determined was that
we needed to in order to give the operation legs right,
we needed to team up with the inappropriate unit, which
was our Washington State Patrol and have them be the

(01:29:46):
marked interdiction unit on the highway. So once CDP got
their high altitude surveillance aircraft with a camera system and
it's the same camera system that's on a Predator drone,
once we had that plane in place and working for us,
we could essentially, after we identify the different landing spots,

(01:30:11):
we would know when something was going to happen, when
one of our targets would cross the border, would go
acquire a vehicle that would be parked somewhere else or
acquire a rental vehicle, then we would know that Okay,
they're headed over to the other side of the mountains
to conduct an offload, an offload of what or maybe

(01:30:33):
it was an onload, right, it was a load that
was going to go to Canada. So it required surveillance
and we would have the high altitude plane watch the area.
They would spot a helicopter coming in at first light,
you know in the summertime in the Pacific Northwest, you know,

(01:30:55):
first light as they got four thirty, so it gets
even it's bright at that time of the morning, you
can fly very early. What we also found was that
the smugglers were operating like Tuesday to Thursday. They would
never conduct smuggling operations on the weekends because that's when
all the recreational people were out in the forest, hiking,

(01:31:16):
fishing at mountain lakes and whatnot. So our sweet spot
was really to work like Tuesday to Thursday, and our
high altitude surveillance plane would watch them conduct the offload,
would follow out the vehicle. We would follow the vehicle
three four hours down to the interstate, and then we'd

(01:31:39):
had the Washington State Patrol take them off. Being that
it was a Canadian helicopter that came from Canada, to
drop the load as long as we maintain continuous surveillance
of that vehicle. We still had border search authority on
that vehicle. But what we did was we had the

(01:32:00):
Washington State Patrol under our authority stop the vehicle. We'd
seize the load, but the offloaders did not know that
ICE Special agents were involved. They thought it was a
Washington State Patrol did it by themselves. And what we
would ultimately do was we'd have the Washington State Patrol

(01:32:24):
taken back to their station. A couple of our guys
would show up and not lie to the smuggler, but
just say.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
Hey, we're investigators, we're here.

Speaker 3 (01:32:33):
Investigating this incident, and try to get the guy to talk.
Nine times out of ten they wouldn't talk. We would
also try to make the smuggler think that we didn't
know that it came off of a helicopter. We'd go, hey,
you've got a six hundred pound load of marijuana here.

(01:32:56):
Where did you meet the commercial truck that had this load,
And so that they would realize that, oh, these guys
don't know it came in be a helicopter, And ultimately
we would tell the offloader after leaving them by himself
in the detention space we'd come back from and go, hey,

(01:33:18):
it's your lucky day. The US the prosecutor said that
we can't prosecute you because the troopers did an illegal search.
But it wasn't an illegal search. It did it under
our authority as an extended border search. So we would
essentially cut the guy loose, but we had his load,
we had all the data out of his GPS, we

(01:33:41):
had all the data out of his phone, and we
cut the guy loose. And that's how we were able
to essentially give that operation leads by doing that sort
of activity over and over again for eighteen months, and
you know, we identified about fifteen locations that helicopters were

(01:34:01):
offloading to different offloaders and for different groups. So you know,
it was very successful in that nobody had ever in
the United States, in the US law enforcement had ever
worked smuggling to the helicopter to that scale like we
did and had that kind of effect and was able

(01:34:26):
to gather so much intelligence as we were able to
gather during.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
That off Amazing how many things and thank you for
going into that, you know, how many of the current
things would come up. Hopefully the course with different topics
that we've hit on. We go back earlier to what
we talked about with patients long term investigation. You know
what they're doing. You just I mean, if you're a younger,
more inexperienced, more gung ho agent, you just want to nab,
and maybe even an older one. But it takes time
to build it that way. When it's time to move in,

(01:34:52):
when it's time to make these apprehensions, the case is
iron clad. There's nowhere legally speaking for them to go.
And for forty six of those individuals, there was nowhere
to go. And you've had a lot of satisfied cases
in your career, many of which we've been able to
talk about so far tonight. I have to imagine that
if it's not the case of your career, it's certainly
somewhere very close.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
To the top.

Speaker 3 (01:35:13):
Yeah. And I would say not just for myself because
I was a supervisor and I was out in the
field with our special agents, but for the special agents
that did all the work, they were incredible. It really
was like the team of teams to have. Besides being
tenacious in their investigations, in their surveillance, these guys would

(01:35:37):
never quit. They would never give up. I actually I
coined this term, Hey, We're going to follow them to
the ends of the earth, and they were like, yeah, okay,
we know what you're talking about. But they were incredible
interviewers as well. So when we would have a defendant
not in Frozen Timber because we didn't want them to

(01:35:57):
know that we knew how they did it, but in
other investigations, these special agents that I had, and I'll
just give them a shout out with their first names, Jesse, Kevin, Chad,
and Ben. They were incredible interviewers. There really was nobody
that they could not relate with and get them to

(01:36:20):
roll over and to assist us. I was just so
fortunate to have them as part of our team. And
then we had other individuals on our team that were
like really great at surveillance. You know, we're working in
the forest, so you know, one of our special agents
was also a Green Beret in the Army, so this

(01:36:44):
guy was highly capable, smart about operating in that kind
of environment. We teamed up also with US Force Service
Law enforcement and investigations with their uniform side. They very
much which kind of showed us what was permissive and
not permissive in the forest so that like we brought

(01:37:06):
the know how of how to do a smuggling case,
and the Forest Service brought okay, this is what we
can do in the force and not do because the
bad guys or the recreational people will notice us. Then
we're also very fortunate that we had the air branch
in our air resources and this high altitude.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
Surveillance aircraft working with us.

Speaker 3 (01:37:29):
So you know, it really was the team of.

Speaker 1 (01:37:33):
Teams absolutely, and great work and great job to not
just yourself but everybody involved with that to make that happen.
Now two thousand and is interesting because you know, again
major relocation in nineteen ninety seven from South Florida to Washington.
Then you get settled into Washington State that is not
DC with the work that you were doing and blamed
and then an international relocation very later in your career

(01:37:56):
at that eight to twenty eleven abroad in the UK
more specifically London. What prompted that? And you know, again,
was it hard, especially from the standpoint of having a
family at that time, to say, hey, we got to
go not just you know, to another part of the country,
to another country altogether.

Speaker 3 (01:38:13):
Yeah, you know, that's another opportunity of being in federal
law enforcement, especially being in one of the larger agencies
that have an international footprint.

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
Is to go overseas and work overseas.

Speaker 3 (01:38:24):
And I think it was it was time at that point.
You know, I had been I'd been a field special
agent for thirteen years before I became a supervisor, which
is kind of unheard of. Some people will do like
three four years and they become a supervisor. So I
had already been thirteen years in the field as a
field agent. I had already been eleven years at that point. No,

(01:38:45):
at that point was eight years as a first line
supervisor in the field with the special agents. So what
was the next thing to do. Well, I could go
to headquarters, but oh, let's try to go international. And yeah,
I talked to my wife about it. We had our

(01:39:06):
two sons that were eight years old at the time,
and we thought that it was the right time to
do something different again, you know, embracing the spirit of
my dad who who lived around the world. He actually
traveled the world, you know, I wanted to do it myself.
So the opportunity to turn to go to London as

(01:39:29):
the deputy adashe essentially running our investigative and intelligence sharing
operations in our office in the US Embassy in London,
and we went for it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
And went for it. He did so in those three
years being over there and being able to get again
a feel for the lay of the land. There's a
lot going on. It's not just a smuggling again. I
go back to counter terrorism. That was a big thing
to two thousand and eight. When you go over there
were only three years removed from the seven seven attacks
in two thousand and five, and a big thing again
I keep hitting on is inter agency collabse operations, not

(01:40:00):
just the operations there, strengthening the partnerships, building the relationships
that you have, particularly as it comes to intelligence sharing.
So tell me about networking there and building a whole
new roster of contacts supplement the ones that you had
built up state side in the twenty one years you
spent there.

Speaker 3 (01:40:16):
Yeah. Well, when I got there, you know, when you
get to an office.

Speaker 2 (01:40:21):
There's already an existing network.

Speaker 3 (01:40:23):
And it's really from the agents that have been there
prior to you. So you know, I was the GS
fourteen Deputy attushe but then we had five GS thirteen
special agents that were are you know, working cases, working
what we call collateral cases on behalf of our offices

(01:40:45):
back in the United.

Speaker 2 (01:40:46):
States that have leads that need to be run in the.

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
UK, or in the Republic of Ireland or in some
of the other British islands. So there is an existing network.
So it's really all about maintaining that work, that network,
and then programmatically expanding what we're doing with our partners. Now,
the United Kingdom uh considered America's greatest partner. You'll you'll

(01:41:12):
hear presidents say that over and over again, and they
certainly don't don't now or even in the past, need
our assistance with investigative technique and tradecraft. They're very good.
They're very good, I mean, and everything that they do.

(01:41:33):
You know, you look at the Metropolitan Police Service in London.
They have somebody for everything, you know, and I'll give
you the example. They'll have like surveillance foot surveillance guys.
They'll have photographic surveillance guys. They'll have a photograph interpreters

(01:41:56):
that look at the footage that that's gathered out in
the field. I mean, there's there's so much specialization and
perfection of their technique and how they do things. Just
to mention a few. So they certainly didn't need.

Speaker 2 (01:42:10):
Our help.

Speaker 3 (01:42:13):
With any of that. And and you know, but what
happens is that as we identify new threats to United
States trade and commerce or or illegal export threats, et cetera,

(01:42:33):
we bring them to the attentions of our partners who
will likely have a piece of the pie or a
piece of the action, because let's say the activity may
be based in their country or it maybe tranship through
their country. So we can bring to them awareness of
a crime or how the smugglers are smuggling by working

(01:42:59):
with them and bringing them information, and then it works
the other way. They'll bring things to us as well.
So you know, in a country like the United Kingdom, uh,
we're not doing any handholding h in where you may
see some of our agents that are working in a
lesser developed country and Central America, or in Asia or

(01:43:19):
in Africa, and they're actually showing the counterparts how to
do the work. In the UK. It's all about maintaining
those contacts and amplifying what we can do together. And
so you know, I used to say that our job
is to maintain that outpost, very nice outpost, you know,

(01:43:43):
in the in the in the nicest part of London.
But our job working in the embassy is to keep
that outpost running for the servicing of our investigations in
the United States by our AGSI special age that need
help in Scotland or Wales, or the Republic Ireland or

(01:44:07):
Northern Ireland. So that that was really what we did.
And I always joked that a lot of what happens there,
you know, happens at the bar. You you spend a
lot of time socializing with your counterparts and you know
they're it's almost as if, you know, thinking back of

(01:44:30):
a lot of meetings that I would go to, we
would meet our counterparts at two pm in their office
and by two twenty we had already discussed what we
needed to discuss, and it's like, all right, let's go
to the pub and the rest of the business has
done over, you know, a pint. And I always joked
that I learned all about Guinness on that international assignment.

Speaker 1 (01:44:53):
Of course, and that was again, it's nice to walk
into a situation like that where and it's not just
the U. Okay, there's other countries like this, and I'm
not putting down any other lesser developed country you know,
again it's important to network with those countries as well.
But the work's already and as you said, in progress,
it's already being done to the same sophisticated level. It's
a first world country, so therefore you know, again first

(01:45:16):
world country, first world problems, yes, but some of the
problems that you're facing with the third world country and
trying to partner with them are not present here. You
see that with not just the UK, but with Israel too.
You go over there, they have the idea if they
have a masade, so they're able to function at that
level as well, to where it makes the job a
lot easier because you know you're dealing with a counterpartner
an ally at that that has the exact same resources

(01:45:40):
you do, just with a different name and just with
different laws to follow, which is but ultimately was able
to make that partnership so successful. You were only there
three years. It was an enjoyable three years. You came
back stateside and you were active and blamed. You got
the chance to oversee the building of a facility twenty
six thousand square feet at that in the Washington area,
specifically Ferndale, which i've metched was very nice and around

(01:46:01):
twenty eighteen is ultimately when after these thirty one years
you decided to call it a day, so long time
coming by this point, a lot of work and went
into the work that you've not only done in Miami,
but Washington, London, you know, but again you were still
having a great time. What was it, ultimately that made
you say, you know what, all right, this chapter in
my life was really a lot of fun, but it's

(01:46:22):
time to pack it in.

Speaker 3 (01:46:24):
Yeah, you know, it's a couple of things, you So, Yeah,
I came back from London and I became a second
line supervisor, which is an assistant special Agent in charge.
I was responsible for the what would be considered a
division in Blaine. We had seventy people under our roofs
because we had multiple locations that we had our people

(01:46:47):
in in our county. We had we had like fourteen
task force officers from state, local, federal agencies. We had
RCMP Canada Customs working in our building. And I did
the job as the head of the office. Not that
I wanted to, but I felt that I needed to

(01:47:12):
for my family to get them back into our house
in Bellingham, Washington. And then also the former special agent
in charge wanted me to come back because he wanted
me to try to bring the Blaine office back to
where it had been prior to my departure, which some

(01:47:36):
of that is possible, and some of that is impossible
because the bad guys always have a vote, right, the
smugglers are always changing what they do, So what was
successful for us.

Speaker 2 (01:47:50):
During Frozen Timber may not be.

Speaker 3 (01:47:53):
Successful in present day. So, you know, I went back
to Lane, and after a while, you know, I realized
that it was important to get our people under one roof.
Because we had our people spread out in four different
locations inside of one county. It was kind of absurd.

(01:48:14):
And so I started working on developing the requirements for
a new building. And I was successful in that, and
I got that approved before I retired, although I never
worked in it because I was gone by the time
they started construction. But you know, our guys working in

(01:48:41):
HSI and Blaine and working under the auspices of our
Border Enforcement Security Task Force were essentially the go too
for border related criminal investigations in the area, and they
needed a building that matched their mission and match their
responsibility and their profile. So I was able to get

(01:49:05):
that building approved for them before I left, but I
really left because it was kind of timing. I felt
like there wasn't much more that I could get my
arms around. At that point in my career thirty one years.
I was fifty four, you know, mandatory retirement for us
as fifty seven, and my boys, who were fraternal twins,

(01:49:29):
were graduating from high school that year, and we really
wanted to do a move with them to somewhere where, honestly,
that there was a little bit more sunshine. You know,
most of the time in the Pacific Northwest it's gray
and gray and drizzly except for a few months in
the summertime. So we chose Central Oregon, on the east

(01:49:52):
side of the mountains.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
And we moved down there.

Speaker 3 (01:49:56):
At the same time, I was hired a local community
college here in bund Oregon to be the director of
public safety. So I was up for that challenge and
up for a new challenge, which was serving the needs
of a small community, which is a community college. And
I felt that some of the emergency management experience that

(01:50:19):
I developed and the training that I received towards the
end of my career as a division head, I could
apply that to this new job. In this new mission
in Oregon.

Speaker 1 (01:50:31):
And again I like how you put that a new
challenge after so many years being involved in so many
different things. I imagine it was an attitude that you
were eager to take honor. I love how you mentioned
I'm not clowning Washington. But there's a reason they call
Seattle Raine City because you know, specifically growing up watching
Cops episodes that they would film in Pierce County, primarily
because stuff was always happening in Pierce County. The common
theme I would ask myself in these episodes he's rerunch

(01:50:53):
from the nineties or on YouTube in their entirety, Is
it ever sunny? Why is it always overcast? Open there?
And I guess you just to explain why, you know,
And this I did want to touch on a couple
of years after this. You know, Jack, one of your twins, said,
went into the Marine Corps, which is not any branch
of the military, and you get into I have friends
I work with through our military events, and it's not

(01:51:15):
easy to training no matter the branch is intense. It
takes a lot out of you physically, it takes a
lot out of you mentally. And he made it into
the Marine Corps before we get to, of course, the
tragedy involving him. Just tell me what he said, because
it's always jarring for any parent to hear, Hey, I
think I want to go into the military. When he
said he wanted to go into the Marines, what was
you and missus Ostrowsky's first reaction.

Speaker 2 (01:51:38):
We're happy for him. We were proud of him for
making that decision. When he so he.

Speaker 3 (01:51:44):
Started going to the local community college here in Bend,
and he was an uncommitted freshman on.

Speaker 2 (01:51:50):
Army RTC because Oregon State.

Speaker 3 (01:51:53):
University is also in in Bend and they have an
Army RTC program that's shared with the community college. So
Jack was over there as an uncommitted freshman. He'd gone
on a couple of field training exercises and I remember
him coming back and he was just raving about how

(01:52:14):
much fun it was to.

Speaker 2 (01:52:16):
Be in these these scenarios or.

Speaker 3 (01:52:20):
This field of training exercise that was like, you know,
it's the infantry. You know. They were like in some
location in Astoria, Oregon, which, believe it or not, there's
rain up there because it's on the west side of
the mountain. So he came back, you know, soaked dirty
and with a smile on his face, raving about the

(01:52:42):
infantry and whatnot and how much he loved it. So
when he told us that he wanted to enlist and
become a marine, he basically put it this way. He goes,
I want to learn the job before I'm leading others
in doing the job and telling them how to do
the job. He goes, I don't want to continue on

(01:53:03):
at college and with Army RTC. And we're like, great,
that's fine, because, uh, you know, it kind of fits
the parameters of what I call the Meal deal. It's moral, ethical, affordable,
and legal. Something that I learned from from an RCMP
officer that told me that a long time ago. And
uh so we on percent supported him, uh in his uh.

Speaker 2 (01:53:28):
His decision.

Speaker 3 (01:53:29):
And I think it was part of him embracing that
Ostrowsky spirit that you know, his grandfather was a self
made man when he came to the United States. I
essentially became a self made man inside of my organization,
you know, working my way up from the bottom, uh
to where I ended up. And he wanted to do

(01:53:49):
the same. So, uh that was that resonated with us,
you know, and and and we had no no issues
with it whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:54:01):
And he ended up becoming a lance corporal in the
Marine Corps. So his rise was very quick in this
summer of twenty twenty, when a lot was already going
on a lot in the country, both with the pandemic
and other well documented matters. Comes that tragedy. No parents
should ever have to bury a child, and I'm very
sorry that you went through that, But just dealing with
that and of course advocating in the aftermath of something

(01:54:23):
like that. It was a training accident that unfortunately took
Jack away from us. Just tell me about carrying on
his legacy, carrying on his memory, and what you want
people to know about who he was and how we
can avoid situations like the one that unfortunately took him
away from us.

Speaker 3 (01:54:40):
So Jack was killed in training on July thirtieth, twenty twenty,
in the middle of the pandemic. He was killed with
eight others when their amphibious assault vehicles sank off of
Sant Clmenty Island, California, as they were trying to return
from San Clmenty Island to the USS Somerset, which is

(01:55:04):
a Navy amphibious ship which, by the way, the Summerset
is named after Somerset County where Flight ninety three crashed,
so that's its nexus to nine to eleven. So you know,
we were, we're devastated, and I mean, in a way

(01:55:25):
we still are because we saw Jack as.

Speaker 2 (01:55:29):
The next leader of our family and.

Speaker 3 (01:55:33):
So and he had a very bright outlook and a
bright future and he didn't have to enlist. He wanted
to enlist. He wanted to become a marine, and he
was already talking about making it his lifelong career because

(01:55:54):
it was his calling. So you know, when it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:56:00):
We were.

Speaker 3 (01:56:02):
Destroyed, you know, destroyed our future plans that we had
at the time, and.

Speaker 2 (01:56:10):
You know, we were you know, at a certain point.

Speaker 3 (01:56:15):
I was like, wow, you know, I you know, I
served my country for thirty one years. He was trying
to follow create his own.

Speaker 2 (01:56:26):
Path and serve as country, and so yeah, it was
just very.

Speaker 3 (01:56:35):
Tragic for all of us. Disappointed in a sense that
his life was cut short the way it was.

Speaker 2 (01:56:41):
And then.

Speaker 3 (01:56:44):
You know, the investigation showed that there was a lot
of negligence, a lot of lack of leadership, and you know,
as somebody that became a leader in my old organization,
it was clear to me that there was a lack
of duty of care and some of the officers were,

(01:57:09):
you know, playing Russian Roulette with the lives of the
junior Marines by cutting corners, skipping training, assigning poor conditioned vehicles,
amphibious assault vehicles that were essentially administratively deadline they should
not be used. Yet they were forced to use those vehicles.

(01:57:34):
And it's just a tragic situation for our family and
the eight other families and their fellow marines.

Speaker 2 (01:57:43):
To see that happen. It's just.

Speaker 3 (01:57:47):
It's been awful. So you know, I've been I've been vocal.
I looked at because you can imagine that they conduct
an investigation. This is considered a lass a mishap where
there's a loss of life, a loss of equipment, and
the investigation showed, just like like I said, a lot

(01:58:11):
of corner cutting. Uh they didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:58:14):
Complete the appropriate training, The.

Speaker 3 (01:58:16):
Maintenance on the vehicles was poor, in the in the fact,
in the fact that they had poor conditioned vehicles to
begin with, and then they tried to use them and
tried to bring them up to a condition for use,
and and uh so the vehicle ultimately sank because of
a transmission leak transmission fluid leak because on those vehicles

(01:58:41):
the transmissions power some of the bilge pumps. The vehicles
UH headlight gasket was installed backwards, so water was coming
in UH and ultimately, you know, the vehicle was had
too much water inside of it and the bilch pumps
could not keep up and the vehicle sank. And you know,

(01:59:07):
then most of the nine of them were actually found
on the on the bottom of the ocean floor at.

Speaker 2 (01:59:13):
Three hundred and sixty five feet under.

Speaker 3 (01:59:15):
The under the water, and you know, they weren't recovered
for about twelve days because they had to bring in
specialized equipment to recover them in the vehicles. So, you know,
the whole thing was tragic and very painful, and it's
still very painful to our family. But you know, I

(01:59:36):
found in some of the investigative reports, investigative interviews just
like it was just a broken, broken unit, a broken organization.
I looked at their their pre confirmation briefing, which is
like an operational brief prior to the exercise, and on

(02:00:01):
the risk assessment, there was no mention whatsoever that they
were using these poor conditioned vehicles. There was no mention
whatsoever that they hadn't completed the required training to be
in those vehicles as in bart troops. You know, the
only mention in the risk assessment was that somebody could

(02:00:21):
get run over by one of those vehicles in the
well deck, on board the ship, or while on land
on the island. So, you know, when I looked at that,
being you know, experienced special agent who's written operational plans,
approved operational plans, and I see that kind of boiler plate,

(02:00:44):
I'm like, man, there's either like a lack of duty
of care, or they're not qualified to assist risk, or
it's just like a cover up of their lack of
preparedness and readiness. So you know, the whole thing was
very disappointing to us, especially to see that in black

(02:01:05):
and white, you know. And uh, and it still is.
I mean, they basically let us down. And uh and
they let Jack down, and they let the other the
other down.

Speaker 2 (02:01:16):
You know, the other Southern Marines and the Navy.

Speaker 3 (02:01:19):
Corman that were killed, they were all let down by
their by their leadership, principally because of neglect.

Speaker 1 (02:01:28):
Uh. And that's that's the troubling theme that you see
across either national service or even civil service for as
great as a fire service or law enforcement can be.
For example, you see this year state side. Unfortunately, certain
agencies are very reactive and it takes tragedies like this
where people are either seriously injured and never the same

(02:01:49):
or they die, they are killed and it didn't need
to happen. That's the common theme majority of these situations
when you analyze them. Ninety five percent of these situations
where there is a loss of life for the line
of duty, as you just touched on, they're preventable. And
it takes, unfortunately, individuals, like I said, having to get hurt,
having to get killed, for people in charge of these

(02:02:10):
organizations to ultimately say, oh, yeah, we should fix that.
It should not take that, It should never take that.
And I guess that's the point of the advocacy too.
And again we talked earlier about silver linings. This should
have never happen in the first place. But if there
is going to be a silver line against such an
awful situation, it's the advocacy and making sure, hey, be
on top of your equipment. It shouldn't even have to
be said, and it's sad that it does, but be

(02:02:31):
on top of your equipment. Watch what type of fleet
you're handling and sending it out there, because you don't
want members operating in these type of conditions where it
can prove fatal.

Speaker 3 (02:02:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:02:41):
Yeah, And.

Speaker 3 (02:02:43):
So you know, I testified by the UH well before
the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Readiness. I've testified
there as interviewed by Leslie Stall in sixty minutes several
years ago in a segment called the Death and Training
that talked about not just the av incident, but rollover.

Speaker 2 (02:03:07):
Incidents in the various branches of the.

Speaker 3 (02:03:10):
Military, whether it would be a small reel vehicle or
an armored vehicle with wheels. So trying to do my part,
speak out or the opportunities present themselves. But you know,
I have to say that, and I'm not sour about it,

(02:03:35):
but it's just the way it is, is that I
think we lost some of our steam talking about readiness.
Thirteen months later during the tragic deaths at Cobble. Yes,
so we had our own steam calling for readiness and
improvements in the Marine Corps. And then again eleven Marines,

(02:04:00):
an Army soldier, and a Navy corpsman are killed in
Cobble and the spotlight shifted to that, and it seems
that despite everything that was identified in the investigation of
Jack's incident, the Marine Corps really didn't take it to
heart because, you know, they replaced.

Speaker 2 (02:04:22):
The aves, which were essentially.

Speaker 3 (02:04:23):
Vietnam era vehicles that were refurbished over decades. You know,
they replaced him with this new amphibious combat vehicle, very similar,
but it's wheeled instead of tracked. But yet it appears
that the operators of that amphibious combat vehicle still don't

(02:04:47):
have the blue water competency that they need to have
to operate in the ocean, because since then, they've had
three incidents off of the California coast where they've three
of those vehicles mainly doing due to going out in
like high surf, which there's anybody that has any kind

(02:05:11):
of blue water competence, he knows you shouldn't be going
out and high surf and those kinds of vehicles because
they'll roll over if they go abroad to the way
a beam to the waves, so they'll roll over very easily. Luckily,
in those incidences, no lives were lost, but they lost

(02:05:31):
three vehicles. So yeah, I mean, you just hope that
they will do better. And not put others at risk.
And you know, Mike, I'm convinced that I know who
Jack was, and I knew I know who he was
going to be, and I knew that at his level

(02:05:54):
and wherever.

Speaker 2 (02:05:56):
He ended up in the Marine Corps, he was going to.

Speaker 3 (02:05:58):
Make it a bet. But I just never thought it
would be like this, by unlosing his life.

Speaker 1 (02:06:09):
And again, I cannot, and I speak for producer Victor
and all of us watching tonight, we cannot say how
sorry enough we are that you had to experience that
no parents should ever have to experience. That I do understand,
and I know hindsight's twenty twenty, but this is, as
we talked about, this is just ridiculous. You know, I
do understand training individuals who are getting into the military

(02:06:29):
or the police force or the fire department to learn
to be comfortable and the uncomfortable. It is part of
the job. But there's a fine line where that crosses
into this is just unnecessary and this is just unsafe.
And that was one of those situations where unfortunately it did.
And I'm glad that you've been so outspoken about it,
and I hope that, like you said, and you couldn't
have sent it any better. That they do get better

(02:06:51):
from this, so that we don't have tragedies like this,
so we don't have talented individuals and determined individuals ripped
away when they don't need to be. It's a dangerous
thing to get into. It's not an easy thing to
get into. Let's not make it any more dangerous than
it needs to be with situations that are entirely avoidable.

Speaker 3 (02:07:08):
Yeah, and there's nothing that I can do, good or
bad that's going to bring Jack back, but I can.

Speaker 2 (02:07:15):
Be vocal.

Speaker 3 (02:07:18):
To work towards it.

Speaker 2 (02:07:22):
Not happening again.

Speaker 3 (02:07:24):
But what I've come to realize is that you know,
now that I find myself as a gold Star parent
is to help other gold Star parents and families wherever
I can. And that opportunity came to me after Cobble
because there's an organization called the Brothers in Arms Foundation,

(02:07:48):
the a Raidar Air Service where they provide free logistical
support and.

Speaker 2 (02:07:56):
Air transportation to marines and their families during tragedies like.

Speaker 3 (02:08:03):
The one that Jack was involved in. And also they
will bring groups.

Speaker 2 (02:08:08):
Of marines to different.

Speaker 3 (02:08:09):
Memorial services, and that organization.

Speaker 2 (02:08:12):
Brought fifty marines to Jack's.

Speaker 3 (02:08:14):
Memorial service in Bellingham, Washington in August of twenty twenty.
So when Cobbyle came, I had already helped them raise
money for their organization by taking the stage at one
of their fundraisers in March of twenty twenty one, and

(02:08:38):
so when Cobbyle happened, they contacted me and asked me
if I would help them do a law enforcement coordination because.

Speaker 2 (02:08:45):
They were going to again bring a large group of
marines to as many.

Speaker 3 (02:08:51):
Of the Cobble funerals as they could, And of course
I said yes. You know, it gave me the ability
to use my know how of interacting, you know, with
law enforcement at all levels to help them do this
coordination and all the cities.

Speaker 2 (02:09:09):
That we're going to bring marines tough. So we actually.

Speaker 3 (02:09:12):
Went on a five city trip and to five of
the funerals, and then we did two more funerals and
separate trips. So, you know, I find myself where, you know,
the Brothers in Arms Foundation help my family, and now
I'm helping them help other New gold Star families. So

(02:09:37):
that's what I'm focused on now.

Speaker 1 (02:09:39):
Thank you very much for that. You've done a lot,
You've gone through a lot, and we appreciate you taking
the time this evening share your story with us. This
was a fantastic episode, and we'll end as we always do.
As you know the show by now you know it's coming.
It's the Rabid Fire.

Speaker 2 (02:09:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:09:53):
Five hit run questions for me, Five hit run answers
from you, you know the most. I won't even ask
you the first one because I've been seeing this a
lot late, and I don't mind it because when guests
are telling great stories, it helps. The first question, rapid
Fire was going to be the most memorable case you
ever worked, but I think Frozen Timber kind of covers
that in space, So I'll move on to the next one.
A lot of tough moments in your thirty one career,

(02:10:13):
thirty one year career where you had to put your
thinking cap on. Second question, Rabbid Fire, what would you
say was the toughest moment that, either prior to you
becoming a supervisor or post you becoming a supervisor, you
found yourself saying, damn, I really got to figure out
a way to get through this.

Speaker 3 (02:10:27):
Well, I think you're You're not going to be surprised
when I say this that after being a field specialism.

Speaker 2 (02:10:34):
For thirteen years, after being.

Speaker 3 (02:10:36):
A second line supervisor for eleven years. Probably the toughest
was leaving the field and becoming a second line supervisor
and being stuck in the office and essentially going into
management and being an administrator.

Speaker 1 (02:10:51):
I could see why you loved the field, and it
shows in the stories that you told tonight. Besides London,
because London was pretty darn rewarding, what would you say
was the most other rewarding assignment post that you had
over those thirty one.

Speaker 3 (02:11:01):
Years, believe it or not, being a second line supervisor,
because I was able to have a larger impact than
just working with ten special agents. I was able to
work and influence and assist and mentor you know, an
office full of seventy people. So as much as that

(02:11:23):
was my least favorite assignment, it ended up being probably
the most.

Speaker 2 (02:11:28):
Rewarding, especially after being.

Speaker 3 (02:11:30):
Able to get our HSI Blaine organization, you know, a
purpose built twenty six thousand square foot federal criminal investigative
building to measure up with their profile and their role

(02:11:51):
you know in the Pacific Northwest.

Speaker 1 (02:11:55):
Absolutely well, again it's going to be four questions instead
of the usual five, So third of the four question.
Second to last. One tool or skill every young agent
should master in European.

Speaker 3 (02:12:07):
It's communication verbal, written communication, but especially communication verbal communication.
Knowing how to talk to people, knowing how to listen
and understand both inside of your organization, outside of your
organization with their partners and with the subjects and the
victims and the citizens on the street. You need to

(02:12:30):
know how to communicate with them.

Speaker 1 (02:12:32):
It's important and I always go back to something Bill
Bratton called it, former LAPD Boston and New York City
Police Commissioner, verbal Judo's right, that's the most appropriate term
for it. Verbal judo, final question and rapid fire. What
it means to have served and continue serving before and
after the badge.

Speaker 3 (02:12:49):
It's transformational. I mean, it transforms your life and that
of others. When you help others, there's just no doubt.
And it's a way of life to become a way
of life. And I never imagined, you know, when I
was a Miami Beach lifeguard that I'd end up where

(02:13:12):
I did. But it has certainly transformed my life and his.
I mean when I look at it, like everything that
I have, every tangible thing that I have, is because
of my career, every experience as an adult because of

(02:13:34):
my career. And people say, oh, well, didn't you experience
things with your wife and your family, I'm like, yeah, well,
I mean the career gave me the means to experience
things with my family and to have things and to
enjoy things and to travel. But I owe everything to
my career, and that's why I am committed to wherever

(02:13:57):
I can to mentor current special agents that are in
the ranks and to give back. I'm part of our
Retired Agents Association. We have an association of Customs and
NHCISE special Agents. I'm on the board of directors. I
feel very strong about that. Our organization does employee recognition

(02:14:19):
for current agency employees and we do tragedy assistants. So
because I want all of those current employees to experience
what I experienced, I want them to be as satisfied
with their career as I was satisfied with mine when
I walked away. And you only get one shot.

Speaker 2 (02:14:41):
To do it.

Speaker 3 (02:14:42):
So if there's anything that I can do to help
somebody to take the best shot, I'm all in.

Speaker 1 (02:14:51):
I think I can speak for everybody tonight when I
said you made the most of your shot. My friends.
You really you cashed in big time. You hit the
three pointer at the buzzer to win the championship in
Game seven of the finals, and it showed tonight in
the conversation that we had, this was awesome. Stick around.
We're going to talk off there, so don't say goodbye
just yet before as always, and you know this too,

(02:15:11):
but from watching the program, before I say goodbye to
the audience, any shout outs to anyone or anything that
you have, Pete, the floor is yours.

Speaker 3 (02:15:19):
Oh well, you know, certainly to Bob Starkman and Alex
Alonso and Miles and the others. It's interesting, you know,
the Miami office was so big, yet.

Speaker 2 (02:15:32):
We would work with each other every.

Speaker 3 (02:15:33):
Now and then. It just depended. I ended up not
being in a group working directly with those guys, but
I had opportunities to work with them. And certainly what
you learn from each other is develops you as a

(02:15:54):
special agent. So you know, I really would like to
thank them for.

Speaker 2 (02:16:01):
Let me.

Speaker 3 (02:16:03):
Be in close proximity to them and.

Speaker 2 (02:16:05):
And hearing everything that they were doing.

Speaker 3 (02:16:09):
And then, you know, even to Joe Pistone, you know,
when I went to Undercover Operative school, he was our
guest instructor, and I was wet behind the years, young
special agent, you know, And I learned a lot from
Joe and and was able to apply some of that
stuff when I had the opportunity to work undercover. So

(02:16:31):
and and really and thank you to you, Mike for
giving all of us a voice. And because I think.

Speaker 2 (02:16:40):
The more.

Speaker 3 (02:16:43):
People hear about what they do, it'll inspire others to
answer the call. They may doubt whether they're that this
is for them or not. And I think it inspires
those that are looking to pursuer law enforcing career or
any other hire US career when they hear stories like that,

(02:17:06):
and platforms like you certainly do that.

Speaker 2 (02:17:08):
So thank you for the opportunity, and thank you.

Speaker 3 (02:17:11):
For helping people out there that we don't even know.

Speaker 1 (02:17:16):
Thank you very much. That means a lot. I appreciate it.
Semmer loss on me how much of an honor it
is to do this show for one of those very reasons,
we'll keep on doing it. Pro producer Victor and I
always have stuff that we're cooking up, conversations like this
being the main goal, and we're certainly glad that you
got a chance to be a part of that tonight
and share so much with us. The pleasure is all ours.
The pleasure of course was also the audience is by extension.

(02:17:38):
Like I said, stick around, we'll talk off air for
those of you that tuned in tonight. As always, my
many thanks to you. Producer Victor has always great job
of the ones. Choo's my friend. I appreciate you very
much as well. So coming up next to the Mike
tow Even podcast. As I allude to at the end
of last episode with Commissioner O'Connor, this individual was heavily
involved in New York City EMS pre FDNY merger and

(02:18:01):
was a part of the transitional team during that merger
the spring of nineteen ninety six. So I'm really and
we've talked about her before in the program, but I'm
really going to get an inside look at how that
merger went down and the semantics involved behind the scenes
to making it official the spring of ninety six. And
then she was involved in intelligence operations for the CIA
from nineteen ninety one until two thousand and two. So

(02:18:21):
really during the crescendo of the war on Tarror pre
nine eleven and post nine to eleven, and that will
be Kim Woodward, who will join me for Volume twenty
of The Beat, profiles of police nationwide next Monday. Bill
Gross is the guest for this Friday's volume of the
Best of Braves Interviews with the FD and Wives. The
lead both of those shows six pm Eastern Standard Time.
For those of you listening on the audio side for

(02:18:42):
tonight's outro song from their nineteen eighty seven album Music
for the Masses, Depeche Mode makes their return to the
Mike the New Even podcast with the song Nothing in
the Meantime on behalf of retired special agent Petstrowski, all
of you and the audience and producer Victor Mike Cologne,
and we will see you next time. This has been
Volume nineteen of The Beat. I was pleased initial wife.

Speaker 4 (02:19:08):
M Sitteen times.

Speaker 5 (02:19:39):
Since in waiting at s Fati No still surprising. It advertised.

Speaker 4 (02:20:28):
What am I trying to do? What I'm trying to say?
I'm not trying to sell anything. And they know when
you woke up today since times.

Speaker 3 (02:21:08):
Since your friend.

Speaker 4 (02:21:13):
God is say, oh those are brons friends not to expend.

(02:21:49):
Why am I trying to to I'm not trying to say.
I'm not trying to tell you anything.

Speaker 5 (02:21:55):
I didn't know when you're welcome today, nothing, nothing, noth

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Episode 367: The Beat: Profiles of Police Nationwide: Pete Ostrovsky - US Customs (Volume 19)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 367: The Beat: Profiles of Police Nationwide: Pete Ostrovsky - US Customs (Volume 19)